


Flies on Tape

by aneurysmface



Series: Oh, Common Life [4]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Gen, I just figured I would warn for it, Pre-Slash, You know who it is, also peter hale isn't quite the villain you thinks he is, the major character death is canonical, this is canon compliant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-14
Updated: 2014-04-14
Packaged: 2018-01-19 09:23:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 859
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1464121
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aneurysmface/pseuds/aneurysmface
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is the story of how Peter took care of Chris.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Flies on Tape

After Allison’s death, Chris shuts down hard. If he’s honest with himself, he really doesn’t remember most of the month after her funeral. He ran on autopilot--and he wasn’t the only one. There were days when neither he nor Isaac would get out of bed. Chris usually preferred staying horizontal because his perpetual hangover would hurt a bit less if he just refused to move in general. Isaac stayed curled up because getting out of bed meant that he was alive and Allison still wasn’t.

Peter, not surprisingly, takes it the best of them. He’d never really known Allison, so her death isn’t important to him outside of the fact that it has caused his pack to hurt. People are surprised, though, when he takes on the role of caretaker. He has rounds that he makes: mornings at Derek’s loft where he’ll inevitably find Scott and Stiles in a pile on the couch, afternoons at Lydia’s where he plays the role of ‘grief counselor’ which really means he just lets Lydia scream at him because it does her a lot of good to just let go like that, and evenings at the Argent apartment.

Usually his evenings involve giving Chris a stern look and telling him to lay off the bourbon. Then he’ll go drag Isaac out of bed (if he isn’t already) and force him to eat. Peter had tried dragging Chris to the kitchen table once before and Chris had pulled a gun on him. Now, Peter waits until he’s watched Isaac eat at least one plate of food before he lets him crawl back into bed. Then, and only then, will Peter make up another plate and take it into Chris’ bedroom and sit on the bed next to him.

The first time he does it, Chris refuses to touch the food.

The second time, Chris’ stomach growls loudly and Peter can’t stop the small grin that appears on his face. Chris eats about half of what Peter had brought him.

The third time, Chris eats the whole plate’s worth, but throws it back up an hour later--a combination of too much whiskey and eating too fast.

The fourth time, Peter says that he’ll feed Chris if that’s what it takes to make sure he eats at a reasonable pace. Chris flips him off and takes the plate with better coordination that Peter’s seen him display in days.

The fifth day, the whiskey bottle is still nearly full when Peter walks in and Chris is staring up at the ceiling blankly.

“I’m an idiot, aren’t I?” He asks Peter with no preamble.

“I mean, you’re taking care of an eighteen-year-old who previously had an abusive alcoholic for a father by being an absent alcoholic, so yeah, a bit.” Peter has never pulled his punches, not with Chris.

“Yeah…”

“C’mon, eat. You can make it up to him by being sober tomorrow and taking him to breakfast. I’ll even make sure that Derek and the wonder twins show up.”

“You’re not all bad, Peter Hale.” Peter smiles, but it’s almost sad. That’s how he knows Chris is still a little drunk--he’d never say anything so nice if he was sober.

Because as far as Peter is concerned, Chris hates him. As far as Peter is concerned, they share nothing but a pack and a night long ago on the edge of a quarry.

“Just don’t forget to eat, all right?” Peter sets the plate on the bedside table and leaves, trusting that Chris will pull himself together enough to get back into the world by dawn.

He pokes his head in on Isaac, finding him staring blankly out the window.

“Hey, we’re going to breakfast tomorrow. If you’re not out of bed by 8:30, I’ll tell Scott that you used to idolize him from the sidelines during lacrosse games.”

Peter stops at the hall mirror before he leaves for the night, grimaces when he sees a new set of lines on his forehead and around his eyes. He sighs. The lines were his, but each one belonged to a different member of the pack. Scott and Isaac were the faint lines near his eyes that nobody would really notice unless they were very close. Derek and Stiles get the lines around his mouth--the ones that come from frowning too much in disapproval of their hare-brained ideas. Lydia is what he’s named the knot at the base of his neck that he can feel throbbing at the end of stressful days. The most prominent line on his forehead, though, that one belongs to Chris--his biggest problem at the moment. Peter was their common denominator, the spot where the lines came together.

Peter has never been very good at keeping his family together, but he has always been lucky. This time, maybe--just maybe _this time_ \-- he’d be lucky enough to keep _this_ pack together.

He’d always preferred being lucky anyway.

As he shuts the apartment door behind him, he pulls out his cell phone and dials his favorite greasy spoon breakfast joint and makes a reservation for seven tomorrow morning at 9.

**Author's Note:**

> [Flies on Tape](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6WR9NVrvImY) by Fireworks.


End file.
